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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Happy Hallothanksmas!

Time flies. Christmas will be here before you know it. It’s officially
forty-six days until the big day, and we all know those forty-six days will fly
by in a whirlwind of shopping, baking, and gift wrapping. We’ll all blink, and
it’ll be Thanksgiving, and then, we’ll blink again, and it’ll be Christmas. The
old cliché “as slow as Christmas” just doesn’t seem to apply anymore. Christmas
is fast, folks, and with each passing year, it only seems to get faster. But
where does the time go? It’s the great rhetorical question of the century and,
apparently, one of life’s great mysteries.

In an effort to not blink away this fleeting and rare time
just before the holidays begin for real, I thought I would record some of my
favorite parts of the moments in between candy binge and turkey binge,
otherwise known as Halloween and Thanksgiving. Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite
times of the year. The excitement for
the holidays starts building early, and I find myself in a perpetual state of
happiness for nearly the entire months of November and December. I’m pretty
despicable.

Part of my happiness is due to the weather. In the South,
the time in between Halloween and Thanksgiving is neither too hot nor too cold.
As Goldilocks would say, it’s just right, just the right amount of fall
breeziness mixed with just the right amount of beautiful golden leaves and vast
and impossibly blue autumn sky. It’s the recipe for perfect weather:
light-jacket weather, sweatshirt and jeans weather, football weather, homemade
potato soup and chili weather. Don’t you just love it? You should probably stop
reading this right now, throw on a light jacket, and go play in some leaves.
You’re never too old to play in a pile of leaves, right?

Perfect weather aside, this time of year also brings us the
underappreciated and often ignored in-between holiday of Veteran’s Day. I really hate that holidays like Memorial Day
and Veteran’s Day don’t get more attention than they do. They are, after all,
honoring and memorializing the heroes and heroines of our country, but let’s
face it; patriotism is not what it used to be. I only hope that as new
generations grow up to lead our country that some of that lost patriotism is
restored. To my brave father and my late PawPaw, I’m proud of all that you did
to support our country and our freedoms, and at this time of year especially, I
am reminded of the sacrifices you made, and others still make, for love of
country, and I thank you.

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of things to love about this
time of year: the weather, Veteran’s Day, oyster stew on Friday nights, soft
blankets and cats to cuddle, dark and chilly nights with mugs of hot chocolate,
and the first few glimpses of the joyful season to come. Speaking of that
joyful season, my husband and I made our first Thanksgiving grocery store trip
on Sunday. I stocked up on pumpkin and cinnamon and crescent rolls, gleefully
planning my contributions to the family Thanksgiving meal. I can’t decide who
is more excited: me about the cooking or Jeremy about the eating.

But as excited as we may be, we must remember not to wish
away this precious time in between. Time already flies by, instead of wishing
for Thanksgiving and Christmas to get here quickly, we should cherish the
anticipation, the looking forward to family and friends and togetherness. Oh,
and the food…we should never forget to look forward to the food.

What do you love most about this time "in between"?

Author's Note: This was written in response to The Lightning and the Lightning Bug's "Time of the Season" prompt. You have until Wednesday to link up. Come visit us!